Bragg: Keeping things nice and quiet

Updated 6:05 pm, Wednesday, March 7, 2012

But when I want to disappear, I drive to Oakland Estates, the Witness Protection Program of San Antonio neighborhoods.

That's because it's quiet in Oakland Estates. It's quiet there right now. It was quiet there yesterday. Odds are, it'll be quiet there tomorrow, too.

Actually, it's always quiet in Oakland Estates, 800 or so acres of rural lots and country living, sitting in the shadow of the high-tech district of the nation's seventh-largest city.

Bound by Prue, Babcock, Huebner and Fredericksburg roads, the rural landscape stands out like a green thumb next to the Medical Center and USAA. It's like a Bermuda Triangle where urban life goes in and disappears.

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Unsuspecting motorists who've turned onto these streets must feel like their car has been picked up and dropped in a small East Texas town. Then they hit one of the speed bumps, and they feel as if their car was given a punch in the grill.

Narrow streets wrap around large, oak-shaded lots. White-tailed deer frolic on the dozens of empty spaces. Horses mosey around one lot. Goats graze on another. The homes range from farmhouses to brick split-levels.

The only disruptions are the occasional emergency sirens wailing in the distance or when an anxious commuter, trying to avoid congestion on one of the surrounding streets, speeds through the neighborhood and runs afoul of those speed bumps.

This northwest SA version of Brigadoon didn't happen by accident. Oakland Estates has refined the art of being ignored.

"The people have worked hard to maintain that rural environment," District 8 City Council member Reed Williams said. "The neighbors have said they have a culture, and they want to preserve it."

Sue Snyder heads a neighborhood association whose militant curation of the quiet life belies the laid-back vibe of the community. Neighbors patrol the streets with the vigilance of a ninja, wielding building codes, deed restrictions and a city-approved zoning plan like throwing stars against developers.

By leveraging nature and not pressing the city for services, the neighborhood has been able to remain distinctive.

Example: There's no city sewer service available to large chunks of the area. Older homes use septic systems. It's more expensive for homeowners, but it's actually a bonus, Snyder says, in terms of local preservation. The land required to install a septic system makes commercial development nearly impossible and creates yet another obstacle that most prospective developers can't get around.

That essentially ensures that the neighborhood's empty lots will never be developed, thus creating a permanent, green buffer between the neighborhood and the rest of the city.

San Antonio is full of low-lying neighborhoods always asking the city for flood-control improvements.

Not Oakland Estates. Heavy rains typically flood some streets, making them impassable. There are flash-flood gates that will block especially dangerous passes, but beyond that, homeowners generally don't care about water on the road.

"We don't have curb and gutter," Snyder says. "We don't want 'em."

Oakland Estates was Bexar County's first platted subdivision, recorded onto county rolls in 1926. As late as the 1970s, this was horse country, Snyder says. There were stables on Fredericksburg Road.

The city annexed the neighborhood in 1972, and not much happened until the city extended Research Drive. As part of a deal to keep development to a minimum, neighbors agreed to allow an office park on the new road.

The good news, Snyder says, is that those developments are the outside of the neighborhood.

But that's all that's there. The only other buildings of note - which aren't homes, that is - are a Methodist Church, a Buddhist Center, a Sikh Center, a Jehovah's Witness Hall and a day care center. For a place as insulated as Oakland Estates, that's a lot of diversity.

Still, it retains its isolation. If you want pizza, it's nearby in any of a dozen Medical Center restaurants. If you want a heart transplant, that's nearby, too.